


Like Calls To Like

by Jennistar



Series: Like Calls To Like [1]
Category: Atlantis (UK TV)
Genre: M/M, Murder, dark!Pythagoras, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 18:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2702501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennistar/pseuds/Jennistar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like calls to like and that is why, when he sees Telemon, Pythagoras instantly knows he's a murderer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Calls To Like

Like calls to like.

It is a universal law, and one that Pythagoras has thought about and studied extensively. It is a natural truth that creatures will call out to other creatures of their type, and that these creatures will hear them and call back. It is why birds in the sky finish each others songs, why groups of the same species of tree grow together, why animals move in herds. They know they are alike, that they share a kinship and a deep understanding that nothing else could ever try to emulate.

Like calls to like and that is why, when he sees Telemon, Pythagoras instantly knows he's a murderer.

He notices it in his eyes the moment they meet – a light – no, a darkness – that Pythagoras recognises in the very core of his being. He feels it rather than sees it – it belongs to a sense entirely outside of the five that he has devoted his life to. There is no reason to it, no logic, and Pythagoras usually ignores those things in his life that don't make sense because he is a logical man, but this he cannot shake off. He recognises the killer in Telemon because he is a killer too.

There is a darkness that settles inside your soul when you murder a person. It doesn't matter whether it was purposeful or accidental – when you kill someone, something inside you blackens and it's irreversible. You can never be free, no matter how many years you spend running from it. Pythagoras thinks this is why he will never tell Jason the truth about his parentage. He knows what it is to feel your soul blacken inside you and he will do anything, anything in the world, for Jason not to feel that.

So Telemon is a murderer. Pythagoras knows it. He cannot explain it to anyone else, so he sets about digging up evidence for it instead. He finds logical reasons to argue his case when he is talking to Hercules and Jason about his fears. He can always find the logic in a situation. He could tell you a thousand logical reasons why he decided to continue living with a lying, thieving drunk and an unnaturally gifted man with a propensity to get himself into trouble almost every day. He could waffle on about rent, friendship, money problems, basic convenience until he was blue in the face, but he knows what it is really. It is like calling to like.

In the beginning they were so different. Hercules was the coward, Jason the hero and Pythagoras was...Pythagoras. Opposites attract as well, so maybe that's why they all stayed together at first. But it's more than that now. They have been on so many journeys, taken such risks...and they have killed. Jason has killed, Hercules has killed. It was in the heat of the battle, which is not quite the same as spilling your abusive father's brains out onto the floor, but it is still killing. Perhaps their hearts have already darkened, Pythagoras wonders one night, idly watching Jason sleep after a day of exhausting battles in the arena. Perhaps Pythagoras is too late to prevent Jason's soul blackening inside him. Perhaps it is already happening.

But there is a chance it has not. There is that chance. Jason doesn't recognise Telemon's darkness, and even Hercules has to admit that something is wrong about the man. Perhaps Jason can somehow stay blameless even after killing. Perhaps it is another unnatural talent of his. And if it is, then Pythagoras will do everything he can to make it so that this continues. So he pushes everything into uncovering Telemon's true nature. Because Jason is pure and Jason has to stay pure.

There is a lot that Pythagoras will let the universe do to him. He will own the role of the killer, he will let the universe push and pull and punish him all it likes. He will let the universe take its pound of flesh from him. But he will not let the universe touch Jason. Jason is something else entirely and Pythagoras will not let the universe have him.

But like calls to like. Like calls to like and it cannot be denied that the moment Pythagoras and Jason met – the moment Pythagoras launched himself forward and seized hold of the falling Jason's arm – that there was something there. Something called between them. And Pythagoras cannot work out whether it was a darkness or...or...

Jason had been so innocent then. He hadn't even hurt anyone, let alone killed. And yet there was something between them from the beginning. Could it have been the darkness born from his parentage? Could it have been Pasiphae's black soul somehow also existing inside him that spoke to the evil inside Pythagoras? Or could it have been...could it have been something other than darkness? Could it have been...perhaps...

The night after Jason wins the contest, Pythagoras goes on a nightly walk. It is not rare for him to do so – sometimes he will walk and walk, just puzzling things out until the sun rises. So he walks aimlessly, focusing on his feet, focusing on his feelings.

Until a voice stops him.

“You again.”

Something in Pythagoras recognises the voice before he even turns around. He twists and finds Telemon leaning against the pillar of a local tavern, a cup in his hand, half of his face lit up by the tavern's candlelight and half shadowed in darkness. “Are you following me?” he asks.

Pythagoras wonders whether he was – whether something inside him was. “No,” he says instead.

Telemon grins in the dark, a flicker of a smile and a stretch of white teeth. “I'm celebrating,” he announces. “I have won the heart of the Queen.”

Pythagoras tries not to think about Jason's expression when he finds out this news. “Congratulations,” he says.

Telemon pushes himself off the pillar, approaches Pythagoras, still smiling. When Pythagoras was young, he saw a shark being pulled out of the sea half alive. It had tried biting the sailors one last time, its lips rolled back and gums bleeding, and Pythagoras never forgot the way its teeth had been bared in its last rage. Now Telemon's teeth are doing the same thing and Pythagoras starts to wonder whether he's about to get bitten.

“You suspected me,” Telemon says when he is no more than two steps away from Pythagoras. “Right from the beginning.”

Pythagoras forces himself not to step away. “There were many reasons to suspect you,” he says.

“No,” Telemon replies. He takes another step forward. “No, it wasn't that. You saw something. I know you did, I saw it too. In you.”

Pythagoras cannot speak. Up until now, everything he suspected was all inside his own head.

“Remember what I said to you,” Telemon continues. “When you discovered the brand on my wrist. I said 'I know you act only out of love'. Remember, I said that.”

He takes another step forward, and now his mouth is suddenly right next to Pythagoras's ear and Pythagoras can hear every breath he takes.

“I know you love him,” Telemon murmurs into his ear. “As well as I know that he will never love you back. Because of what you are. _Murderer_.”

Pythagoras forces himself to swallow, forces himself to stop shaking. He speaks as calmly as he can. “If that's what you think, then the Queen will never love you back either.”

Telemon laughs, loud and cruel, and pulls back when Pythagoras flinches at the sound. “I don't want her to,” he says.

Pythagoras stares. Telemon drains his cup and turns his back on him, wandering back to the tavern. “Stay out of my way,” he says carelessly over his shoulder as he goes. “Or I'll try even harder to kill Jason.”

And then he walks back into the light and shouts of the tavern, leaving Pythagoras in the dark, shaking and cold.

He makes his way back home, and its only when he is inside the house, greeted by the snores of Hercules and the light breathing of Jason that he feels truly safe. He sits at the table and puts his head into his hands and tries to think.

He said, after his father, that he would never kill anyone again. He even became adept at the healing arts so that he could heal, not destroy. But Telemon...if Telemon ever comes anywhere near Jason again...Pythagoras knows he will kill him. He will kill the man and consider it a good deed done for the world. He will kill him and feel no regret. If Telemon even touches Jason, even looks his way...he is a dead man. This Pythagoras knows, as well as he knows how to set a broken bone, as well as he knows his precious triangles. He knows he will kill him.

The darkness within him grows.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ...Did I accidentally just create the Pythagoras/Telemon pairing?
> 
> Extra NB: Hoping to get started on some new chapters of Development of a Genius now we have new shiny Atlantis episodes, so keep an eye out for more!
> 
> Reviews are loved and treasured!


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